Asia-Pacific Library and Information Conference 2018, 30 July - 2 August 2018 Gold Coast: Roar Leap Dare
This conference paper presents a holistic assessment of the formation of the TAFE Queensland Library Network and the management and organisational strategies taken to respond to the challenges of providing library services in the current Vocational Education and Training sector. TAFE Queensland recently became an independent statutory body and was then amalgamated from six RTOs into one. The TAFE Queensland Library Network was one of the first business units to amalgamate on a state-wide basis. These changes have happened in the context of transformations to pedagogy with an increased focus on online learning and in a restrictive fiscal environment.
This paper will document and analyse these changes in two ways:
- Firstly, by reconstructing the history of the transformation and document the management and organisational decisions taken to realise the necessary changes
- Secondly, by analysing the qualitative and quantitative data from staff and stake holder surveys and feedback we will assess the success and challenges that we have encountered and how that has compelled us to make modifications to our approach. Attention will be paid to measuring the success of providing better access and increased support and resources to the student and staff across a considerable geographical region.
The paper will detail how 21 staff libraries across 6 regional areas in a territory roughly five times the size of Japan were transformed into one network and the work undertaken to ensure the TQLN could fulfil TAFE Queensland’s requirements for consistent resources, licencing and educational outcomes. It will present and analyse the introduction of a unified management team, one customer service strategy, and common information and digital literacy programs. The paper will detail the soft and cultural changes necessary to generate team dynamics and inclusion and the ways that cross-campus teams were used to apply contemporary technological solutions. Special attention will be paid to the processes and technology required to unify the six different catalogues into one and deploy a single library website. Crucially important has been the shift to a shared cross-campus IT architecture in the shape of One Spydus, EBSCO Databases Subscription and EZproxy authentication.
